Can you spread a cheat day out over 3 meals throughout the week? - Heal.me
Nutrition

Can you spread a cheat day out over 3 meals throughout the week?

I've been eating high fat / low carbs for 7 months and have been incorporating a cheat day in once a week. I've felt great so far and quickly returned into ketosis each week. Would I have the same benefits if I were to have 3 cheat meals throughout the week vs 3 cheat meals in one day? Looking forward to hearing from experienced keto folks!

4 Answers

Sam Baron
Let me help you get unstuck and take action on your goals using habit building, mindfulness, and ancestral health principles.

Hi Adam, I'll echo the calls from the other answers to compress your cheat meals. But I'm curious what constitutes a cheat meal for you and what is the motivation behind having 3 cheat meals? There's a lot of interesting, recent research pointing to ketosis not designed to be a permanent, persistent state (Eskimos have a genetic mutation where they don't go into ketosis). Occasional high-carb meals can be beneficial. This will depend on whether you are cheating with sweet potatoes or sweet treats ;)


Minal Rajan, NTP
BETTER FOOD, BETTER MOOD We'll help you connect the dots.

It usually takes your body 3-5 days to get into the state of ketosis when you first start changing your diet. The answer to your question would be based on the reason you are eating this way- Is it because of specific health reasons or because of overall health benefits of eating HF/LC diet? If being in a state of ketosis a 100% of the time is not a goal, then my suggestion would be to follow a cheat meal with longer gaps between this and the next high fat low carb meal. Fasting intermittently will push your body to utilize the time digesting the High Carbs you cheated with, without burdening it with digesting and processing the high fat in your next meal. It will allow for the carbs to be used for energy during the fasting phase instead of being stored as fat reserves in the body's tissues.
Also look into the reason WHY you are wanting more "Cheat meals" -- what is it that your body is craving for? WHAT nutritional imbalances and deficiencies are driving your cravings? A high fat diet does take a strong digestive system to absorb the nutrients from your food --- Are there signs and symptoms of malabsorption or digestive insufficiency that you have considered or overlooked?


Angel Moon
LMT, NMT

Must agree with the response above, but with a little more embellishment. My husband and I have been keto for over a year now, and we do have occasional cheat days. What I've learned is that the longer I stay in ketosis, the less time I have to spend regaining ketogenesis. If I have a cheat today, and another tomorrow, then I'm spreading out my over-carb over two full days, and so that's at least one day longer than it would take, if I just do a full-on cheat on one day.

So far, we may regain a pound or two, but we generally lose that within 4-7 days.


Physician Assistant

Probably wouldn't have the same benefit. The idea is to keep it in a small time window.


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